Bangladesh: University professors inciting students to “attack non-Muslims”, many arrested

Police vets Prof Hasnat Karim’s involvement with Dhaka terrorists. Investigators seize several books praising jihad from the university library where he taught in 2012. Extremist ideas are spreading in some of the capital’s most prestigious schools.

Dhaka (AsiaNews) – Bangladeshi police have discovered that dozens of university professors and high school teachers have been inciting their students to engage in Islamic terrorism.

One English teacher is quoted by a school caretaker as saying that ““Muslims are being persecuted around the world, so let us attack non-Muslims”.

“When attacks against religious minorities occur, many Muslims are happy to know that Christians or Hindus are killed by the militants. Teachers are making a big mistake,” the school caretaker, anonymous for security reasons, told AN.

After the tragic terror attack against the Holey Artisan Bakery Café in Dhaka that killed 20 people, mostly foreigners, the police have increased checks.

In recent weeks, the authorities have received dozens of complaints about missing young people, who, in all probability, have run off to join Islamic militants.

At present, law enforcement is focusing on those who might have inspired such behaviour and other violent actions, preachers and teachers, like Hasnat Karim, a former professor at Dhaka’s North South University (NSU) in Dhaka.

He was at the café in Gulshan district that was attacked on 1 July by five terrorists. CCTV cameras show him strolling on the roof of the building together with the attackers.

This has set off alarm bells among the authorities, who took him into custody to vet his involvement. In 2012, he taught at the same university where one of the terrorists, Nibras Islam, was studying.

This has led some to turn the spotlight on the spread of extremist ideas in the country’s schools, including the most prestigious.

The NSU is one of the foremost private colleges in the capital and experts believe that its administrators have never paid much attention to terror activities on the campus.

A few days ago, the commission of inquiry set up by the government seized several books praising jihad in the NSU library.

The authorities also traced several professors who have taught that it was OK to fight against the infidels. Four are working at private universities and four at English-language high schools in the capital and a public university in Chittagong.

The source reports that a professor from Gulshan (the diplomatic district where the recent attack occurred) encouraged his students to attack non-Muslims.

Even a high school teacher, the mother of a young man who joined the ranks of the illegal Islamic group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), was found to have encouraged such violence.